The use of mobile terminals such as smart phones and tablet computers has become commonplace, and the mobile terminals may provide a variety of useful features to users with the help of a wide variety of applications.
An increase in the number of applications available in mobile terminals may result in an increase in the number of icons of installed applications, and wider display screens may be required to display these icons.
However, given the limited size of a display of mobile terminals due to their portability, it is not easy to display, on a single display screen, all icons corresponding to applications installed in mobile terminals having a display with a limited size. A conventional method provided to solve these and other problems is to provide a plurality of display screens, arrange different icons corresponding to applications on different display screens, and run a specific application after switching the display screens if necessary.
For example, if a user wants to run an application of an icon arranged on a screen #2 while staying in a screen #1, the user may switch the display screens from the screen #1 to the screen #2 by entering a touch input of a right-to-left drag on the touch screen on which the screen #1 is being displayed.
In switching display screens on the touch screen of mobile terminals as described with reference to the foregoing examples, technology for detecting positions of user's touch inputs on the touch screen may be used.
For example, a resistive touch screen may detect positions of touch inputs depending on changes in pressure due to user's touch inputs, and a capacitive touch screen may detect positions of touch inputs depending on changes in capacitance due to user's touch inputs.
Conventional technology for determining positions of user's touch inputs has no separate correction functions for position determination. Thus, when display screens are updated depending on touch inputs, the display screens may not be smoothly displayed. Examples thereof are as shown in FIG. 1.
Referring to FIG. 1, icons corresponding to applications A to D are arranged (or displayed) on a screen #1 as shown by reference numeral 100A, and icons corresponding to applications E to H are arranged on a screen #2 as shown by reference numeral 100D. In order to switch from the display screen 100A to the display screen 100D, a user enters touch inputs (e.g., a right-to-left drag) in order of 10A to 10D, and a mobile terminal updates and displays the display screens in order of 100A, 100B, 100C and 100D depending on the user's touch inputs 10A to 10D.
Updating and displaying the display screens in order of 100A, 100B, 100C and 100D may be construed to update display screens to correspond to the touch positions obtained by detecting the touch positions 10A, 10B, 10C and 10D.
However, the conventional technology does not perform a correction operation in determining touch positions 10A to 10D of the user's touch inputs. Thus, when display screens are updated and displayed in order of 100A, 100B 100C and 100D, the display screens may be unsmoothly displayed.
Therefore, there is a need for a method and apparatus for smoothly displaying updated display screens, when updating and displaying display screens depending on user's touch inputs on a touch screen, such as screen switching and screen scrolling.